Weekly Mileage #168 and Lots of Leatherwork

Monday we dug out the portable puppy fence and let the chicks explore outside. They enjoyed it. I need to do a few things out in the coop, then we'll probably move them out to the brooder area in the next week or so. They're still much too small to be in with the older girls, but it's also time to get them out of the house.

I sewed the name patch on my tote bag. I had to do it by hand, so it doesn't match the rest of the stitching, unfortunately. This bag was a great learning experience, though, so I'm not super worried about it. I used a cheaper "utility side" leather that has a lot of marks and scars- cheaper materials than I'd normally use, but also already looking broken in. Doing it this way was also less expensive than if I was experimenting with higher quality leather.

I made a tool holder so everything's not jammed together in bins. It was getting so hard to find anything. The wood used to be attached to the newel post and held one end of the baby gate in the living room. The gates have been down for a couple years now and I'd taken the wood down and put it in the shed till I thought of something to do with it. It's not as pretty as some tool holders, but it didn't cost me anything and it's perfect for this purpose. Even better, there's room for me to drill more holes as I add to my tool collection.

After music lessons on Tuesday Sunshine had her first orthodontist appointment since everything shut down. She finally got four bottom brackets put on. We had to wait for her teeth to move around so there would be space for the brackets.

I worked on some covers for journals. I cut two with the Glow Forge, then hand stitched one and sewed the other on the machine. Honestly, I'm not super happy with the results, so there's more work to be done here. 

Machine sewed cover:

Machine thread is thinner than hand sewing thread, so it doesn't fill in the holes properly (I actually meant to not cut the holes, but remembered too late). I don't like how grubby the thread got, either.

The hand sewn version:

This one was also super grubby, and the holes didn't cut out as neatly as I'd have liked, which interfered with the stitching process.

Our AC stopped working Monday night, but the technician was able to get it fixed Tuesday afternoon. Turns out it was related to an issue we've had before- a poor design that is easily knocked out of place. Last time it was fixed they wired it weird and it eventually led to it failing again. He fixed it all and hopefully it won't happen again. Seriously grateful for the warranty on our heating and AC unit, since this is the second time we've had to get it worked on in the last couple months.

Since I wasn't happy with the laser cut notebook covers, I dyed some leather for a hand cut notebook cover. Though part of the problem is probably the type of leather I was trying to cut with the Glow Forge- I've had problems with it before. The veg tan leather I hand dyed would have cut fine.

Wednesday I did 10 easy miles on the bike. I had no pain while riding, though my knees felt a bit twingey afterwards. First exercise after my 50k, so I took it pretty easy.

I finally fixed my leather sewing machine. I knew the belts weren't lining up properly, but I wasn't sure why. I ended up having to take apart a few things- either they shifted or I hadn't put them in just the right spot to begin with. Regardless, it's running much better now.

I worked on the third version of the gather basket. I like how it turned out much better, but I want to tweak a couple more things before I call it good.

Thursday Jeremy and I went to Ikea (it's finally open again!) for our new pantry cabinet. So glad we didn't have to drag the kiddos along- wait in line to get in, wait to get our cabinet invoice in the kitchen area, wait to pick up the cabinet pieces.... They would have been all over the place.

Our current pantry is such a poor use of space and it's been getting less and less functional as time goes on. We realized a month or more ago that we could redo the pantry as a stand-alone project, and it wouldn't cost that much. Most of the rest of the kitchen will have to be done in one fell swoop (floors, bottom cabinets, counters, new sink, etc), but if we can improve the pantry situation, that will at least get us started.

We also got some more positionable lights and a new chair for my workspace. There is just not enough light in the basement and my previous chair wasn't that comfy. 

I sewed the notebook cover that I dyed while we drove to IKEA. I won't be doing that again: I got so nauseous. 

I like the design and all and it turned out better than the others, but the process of dyeing is too time consuming. I'm trying to focus on projects that don't take too much time so I can scale my production.

Earlier in the week I finished a course on how to sell your leatherwork. Courses can be hit-or-miss: full of fluff and not super useful, or full of actionable info. This one fell in the second category and has had me thinking about how to really take my leather business to the next level. I took advantage of this week's insomnia (it's that time of month again) to describe my target customer, write my mission statement, decide which products I'll sell (several ideas I had don't fit with my customer avatar, but I thought of some other, non-leather stuff I can add), where and how I'll market my products to my target audience, photo ideas to share on social media, and so on. 

I'm finding that having more clarity on where I want to go with this is helpful. I'm not sitting at my workstation, wondering what to work on next. I have a list of products I'm fine tuning, so I need to work on one of those. I have one more version I want to try on my gather basket, then I'm taking the two most recent versions to a friend who's in my target audience for feedback. I'll do the same as I dial in my other designs.

Narrowing down what I want to do is also helpful when it comes to figuring out what leathers to use and how I'll cut them. I don't like the char mess left by the Glow Forge, so I'll hand cut them. I'll cut acrylic templates where practical with the Glow Forge, which will make for more uniform cuts without the mess. I won't be dyeing leather right now. Maybe sometime in the future, but I'm happy with the leathers I can buy and don't want to deal with the mess and waiting around that comes with dyeing leather. That said, I am going to give alcohol dyes a try. I have some ideas that if I can get them to come to fruition, will be pretty cool, but I won't be using them on journals or bags.

Cramps had me sitting on the Biomat on the couch Friday, so I used the time to update my logo for my leather company. I've tried a few different logos over the years, but haven't been real happy with any of them. I've got it narrowed down to just a couple, so good progress. I need to do some acrylic stamps to see how the different logos I've come up with stamp on leather. That, I think, will be the deciding factor on which logo I use.

I also worked on clearing up my tabs- so many open tabs and my laptop wasn't happy. I still need to clear out my email inboxes- they're creeping back up again.

Saturday Sunshine had the first part of her virtual youth conference in the morning followed by a virtual campout with the other female Scout troops in our council.

At the same time, Jeremy had drill virtually. He had to attend formation via zoom, in uniform.

no idea what's up with Ocean's expression, and yes, he's wearing a t-shirt over his Sunday shirt

I had a blah day, but I worked on my logos a bit more and made my first set of acrylic stamps to test my possible logos. 

I also spent some time researching display options for totes and such. My business plan calls for me to attend homeschool conferences as a vendor, so I need to consider what my booth will look like. Obviously this will have to wait till people are meeting in public again, so while I concentrate on building my online presence I'll also start working on my booth here and there.

I cut an acrylic template for my gather basket. Getting the template Glow Forge-ready took a little more work than I'd planned, but I learned a bit more about how to use Inkscape in the process.

A note on my tote bag: I've been using it this week as I ran errands, and I love it! It's nice and roomy and the leather is stiff and stands up nicely. My old leather tote that I've had for 10+ (maybe as long as 12?) years is starting to show its age and is getting very floppy. 

I planted some hydrangeas two or three years ago and this is the first year they're really blooming in earnest. The blooms vary from pink to light purple, to this very pretty dark purple.

Sunshine has hit a couple milestones in the last week or so: she can now wear my shoes (we just bought her a pair of shoes that are the same size as mine) and she's finally as tall as me. She's been looking forward to this for sooooo long!

Weekly Mileage
Wednesday- 10.0 miles biked
total- 10.0 miles

2020 totals

22 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

146.41 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
11.00 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
160.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
317.41 miles total